Cricket West Indies officials are hopeful that Sabina Park in Jamaica will be able to host its first day-night Test when Australia visit for the third match of their series in July.
Tickets for the series went on sale earlier this week and the third Test is listed as a day-night encounter, with a 1.30pm local start time, following two red-ball matches in Barbados and Grenada. However, making it a pink-ball Test remains dependent on the completion of floodlight upgrade works to bring the venue up to international standards.
Sabina Park has never hosted any day-night international cricket due to the poor quality of the lights.
Cricket Australia is supportive of the Test being a day-nighter and it's understood officials will visit Jamaica as part of a pre-tour inspection this month. Australia have never played a day-night Test overseas.
"The Australians have agreed for it to be a day-night Test match," Chris Dehring said at a press conference on Monday. "It is of course subject to the new lighting system that's being implemented at Sabina Park, that it is finished in time and of course to specification
"We have in place a very strong monitoring and support system to help the Jamaica Cricket Association and the Jamaican government achieve this. We are certainly looking forward to hosting the very first day-night match."
The West Indies fast bowler has been voted the men's debutant of the year
The President of the Jamaica Cricket Association, Dr Donovan Bennett, told Sportsmax in February that the initial hope had been to have the lights installed by January but there had been delays.
"We are supposed to get the lights from our local supplier who will source them from a manufacturer in England," he said. "There were some technical challenges because while we could have gotten cheaper lights from China, they were too heavy for the existing stands at Sabina Park. The wind forces on the pylons would have been a major issue."
West Indies has previously hosted one day-night Test, against Sri Lanka in Barbados in 2018.
Last year, they handed Australia their first defeat in a day-night Test with the famous Shamar Joseph-inspired victory at the Gabba. Overall, Australia have won 12 of their 13 pink-ball Tests but they have all been played at home.
"First and foremost, I do recall, if memory serves me right, the last time we beat Australia, it was a day-night Test," Dehring said. "So it's a maybe superficial example to use, but maybe it's just a good omen."
For both teams, the series will be their first in the 2025-2027 World Test Championship cycle, with Australia heading to the Caribbean after June's final of the current edition against South Africa at Lord's.
It will be Australia's first Test tour of West Indies since 2015, which featured a Test at Sabina Park that the visitors won by 277 runs with Steven Smith making 199.